This Calder Range (Calder Saga 1)

“What do you have in mind?” Benteen prompted, without telling the kid what he’d already done.

“I … thought … I could do his morning chores for him—milk the cow and slop the hogs.” There was an earnest look in his expression.

“You did, huh?” Benteen took a drink of his coffee, studying the lanky kid over the tin rim. “Maybe you’d better decide whether you want to be a cowboy or a farmer. I never met a cowboy yet who volunteered to slop hogs or milk cows.”

“I want to be a cowboy.” Joe Dollarhide stiffened, uneasy that Benteen might have guessed being so close to a farm had made him a little homesick for his pa’s farm.

“How come you aren’t practicing with your rope?” Benteen challenged quietly, because Joe usually practiced off and on all day long, trying to become proficient with that essential tool of the cowboy.

“I been catchin’ just about everything I swing my rope at—head or heel,” Joe declared. “Ask Yates. I been doin’ it regularly.”

“In that case, we’ll be needin’ an extra rider on drag this morning. There’s a couple of cows that aren’t going to like the idea of us leavin’ their calves with a farmer. Do you think you could handle the job?”

“You just give me the job, an’ I’ll show you.” His homesickness was fading now that he was finally getting a chance to be more than just a wrangler’s helper.

“Then you’d better be thinkin’ about gettin’ your breakfast ate and a horse saddled,” Benteen pointed out. “Everyone else around here is just about ready to fork leather.”

“Yes, sir.” Joe Dollarhide was grinning as he went back to pick up his plate and wolf down the cold breakfast.

Benteen shook the dregs out of his empty coffeecup and handed it to Rusty. His glance went briefly to Lorna. “I’m gonna ride out and look over the herd. See you at noon.”

As he walked toward the saddled horses on the picket line, Lorna studied him with puzzled interest. “Rusty, how did he know that Joe was homesick?”

“Instinct, I s’pect.” The cook, too, turned a thoughtful look on Benteen. “Some men know cattle, but not a darn thing about workin’ the men lookin’ after the cattle. Handlin’ men is something Benteen just knows.” He sent a sidelong glance at Lorna. “Now, women’s another thing. Your kind is a different breed altogether. Ya ain’t so easily ‘managed.’”

“Maybe it’s because we don’t want to be ‘managed,’” Lorna suggested.

“Maybe,” he conceded with an indifferent nod. “By the by, there’s a nice patch of wildflowers in a little ravine that runs behind the chuck wagon here.”

A smile trembled on her lips, in spite of the modesty she should have felt. “Why, thank you, Mr. Rusty.” Ever since that first occasion, he had always referred to her strolls to answer nature’s call with an inquiry about the wildflowers she’d seen along the way. It had become a private joke between the two of them. Who would ever have thought that she’d be able to laugh about bodily functions with a man?

When Shorty Niles and Joe Dollarhide had ridden up to the farmhouse with the two newborn calves across their saddles, Lorna had watched from the camp. She smiled when she heard Alfred Jenkins turn and call to his wife. His voice carried all the way to camp.

“Emma! Emma! Come quick!”

Lorna knew their blessing that night would include a mention of the windfall. It made her feel good.

The sweltering temperatures of early July showed no sign of letting up after three days of driving the herd over more treeless prairie. Spanish was the only one who didn’t seem to mind the hot, sweating ride, joking with the other cowhands and insisting his blood was just getting warm. Heat lightning flashed through the heavens three nights running. It made for uneasy times on night herd.

Benteen slept lightly, bedded on the ground near the wagon. A low voice called him to wake for his turn to watch. It was an unwritten rule that you didn’t wake a sleeping man by touching him or shaking him. You were just as likely to find a gun pointed at you.

Pushing back the hat shielding his face, he saw Shorty’s outline standing at the foot of his bedroll. The campfire was out, but an overcast sky lit the world of shadows with flashes of sheet lightning. Benteen rolled to his feet.

“It’s not good out there,” Shorty murmured. “You’d better shuck your metal.”

Night guards had a greater fear of lightning in a storm than stampeding cattle. They were sitting targets in flat country for the jagged bolts that rained fire out of the sky. The superstition prevailed that it was metal that attracted the lightning to riders, so on stormy nights a cowboy divested himself of his knife and spurs, and some even hid their guns.

“Wake up Spanish. Tell him he’s drawin’ an extra watch,” Benteen ordered. “Dollarhide’s too green if there’s a storm brewin’.”

Shorty nodded as Benteen moved to his night horse, a grulla he called Mouse, tied to the wagon tongue, saddled and ready. “Hope you know some church songs.”

When the three riders rode out to the herd and split up to start their circling route, some of the cattle stood up in a silent acknowledgment of the changing of the guard. A few minutes later, they were lying back down.

It was quiet, too quiet. Benteen stopped the blue- gray buckskin a couple times just to listen. The warm air was stifling, licked with tension. Flashes of lightning skylighted the cattle, confirming they were all lying down, but he could hear the rumble of distant thunder. And it was coming closer.

When he passed the kid riding counterclockwise around the herd, Dollarhide was softly crooning an old love song. A little farther on, he met up with Spanish. The Mexican reined in, so Benteen paused, too.

“The Captain is up.” Spanish passed on the information that the lead steer was on his feet. “He doesn’t like this night either.”